Private school education - Is it really worth it?

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My husband and I earn a good living which is well above the average however we both come from humble beginnings. I was raised by a single mum so money was always tight and my husband was raised by mum and dad who worked in admin and as a tradesman. This means that we have always had limited financial means.

However now as adults we have worked incredibly hard to improve our financial situation and both degree, master degree education, living in an expensive part of the UK etc... Some of our neighbors come from vastly different backgrounds to us, private school educated, parents with high profile jobs etc...

Now my neighbor and i have this on-going conversation about private school. She has no doubt that her only son will go to private school whilst my eldest son is currently in state school. I'm pro state school however i have looked into private. We could afford it but it would mean using a huge proportion of our income etc... We also have two kids so having 1 would be a lot more affordable.

For anyone who has kids in private school, what is the reason you chose it? I know its got smaller classes etc but i could hire a private tutor instead which would be even more focused. I personally benefitted more from private tutoring when a kid as large group setting was challenging when i wanted to ask a specific question and be heard as I've always been more introverted.

The cost of private school is £24k a year. With two kids its £50k including lunch and doesn't even include summer holidays, inset days, half terms etc... The thought of spending that much money makes me feel a bit sick.

Now tell me is it worth it?

I'm very pro state schools but they totally failed my ND child who is now thriving in a private secondary. I would rather things had not turned out this way but here we are.

And it's not just the neurodiversity which is the problem. We live in a county with one of the lowest expenditure per pupil on schools - London schools get 20% more. Few schools round here are great.

My child goes to a private school and last year he was given the chance to go and teach another language to the year above. He is shy and quiet but this opportunity boosted his confidence and no doubt will prepare him in some way for a future career. It’s little things like this that could make a huge difference.

@calmcoco Is there another way to get there that costs less? My view is there is.

What is your another way? I think many mums and even the government would like to know your magic formula.

I think it depends on the school and the children. My childrens dad and his siblings went to different private schools, both hated it. Their mum offered to pay for all the grandchildren to go to private nursery and school, both siblings declined the offer.

It is what everyone discusses all the time - tutoring support, extra-curricular stuff, decent career advice & subject guidance, work experience and lots of parental engagement focused on developing intrinsic motivation.

It is no secret, it is done by many, it is cheaper than private school.

@calmcoco another way of looking at efficiency is time - there are only so many hours in a day, and from a learning perspective school hours are worth more than an hour in the evening when the children are tired. I also value being able to spend my evenings having relaxed family time rather than shuttling between activities, trying to tutor (or arranging someone else to do so).

Private school allows us to fit so much more into the day both educational and extracurricular without the stress or exhaustion of trying to provide all the supplemental stuff ourselves. Having spent a couple days in my child’s class at state primary, the proportion of time spent of actual learning (by which I include new material, practical practice or enrichment) was shockingly low. At their private primary they make the most of every day intellectually (small class sizes and lots of hands on learning), physically (PE, swimming or an active club every day), and emotionally/ spiritually (treated as individuals, encouraged in school to develop passions). I just don’t see how I could fully replicate that in a couple of hours after school or on weekends, but admire anyone who tries!

as a family we value time above money (being very fortunate to have fewer financial constraints), so optimise for a different kind of efficiency.

You describe a dedicated project manager role that sourcing the need to different market providers vs use a single private institution to manage most of it. I guess need to take account into the opportunity cost (time, effort and pressure ) for taking on this role for years, let alone the quality and experience of doing it properly.

Totally depends on the schools.

I saw no need for DC to attend private schools at primary level in our area as we lived in catchment to some amazing ones.

Secondary however is a different kettle of fish.

No grammars around here but there are a good choice of selective independent schools. The smaller class sizes are a big bonus and the way the state sector is going is a worry as they just don't have the facilities to support the students enough.

I'm sad that I felt we were unable to find a state school we had faith in. But grateful that we are able to choose the right school for our DC.

I wish all kids could have the same opportunities and facilities.

We have dd1 in prep school and dd2 will attend in a few years. We plan to send both of them to private secondary school. We are really happy with the school and dd1 has thrived there. She can be quite introverted and intimidated by larger groups so having a small class size (12) met her needs really well. She does extracurricular classes after school 3 days a week which are all high quality (classes are hosted by specialist externally providers). PE every day, ballet weekly, French, excellent music and drama and school trips, amazing art and science facilities.
We do take her to several extracurriculars outside of school too, because they either aren't offered at her school for her age group, or the clubs are more specialist and better than offered at school (even though the school has a very good offering, but there are many prestigious institutions in London with junior programs).

They prep for selective senior school exams, mostly independent as we don't have grammars nearby (although it's possible to travel to some grammars in other London boroughs). We plan to pay for private tuition for the exams too when dds are older, because I do think it's worth having the individual support and feedback, and I want them to have the best shot they can get for the exams. So for us it's not a question of private school vs state+tuition, we will pay for both.

For us the financial cost is a manageable chunk of income (and we have assets to cover the cost in the unlikely event our income was reduced). So we didn't really weigh up whether it was worth it, or how it compared to local schools. Our local primary and secondary schools are excellent and sought-after, so it wasn't out of desperate need to avoid failing state schools (and even if local state schools were bad, we could have moved to a better catchment). It's just that it offers enough extra that our dcs would be that bit happier and have more opportunities there, and we like the ethos and teaching. For us it's absolutely worth the cost, but then we aren't sacrificing anything to pay for fees - we can still afford the same holidays, house, help with uni, weddings, housing etc.

My DCs went to state schools. My impression is that private school kids are way more confident that state school kids. Not sure why.

DC1 had much better teachers in (the same) primary as DC2.

Both had a fantastic experience in 6th form. They went to a medium-sized comp with a small 6th form. Both could have transferred to a grammar school, but they didn't because for their subjects their comp had classes of about 5 whereas the grammar had classes of 20 or 30. I reckon the 6th form class size in the comp was better than in a private school! Teachers were good too.

This is what I was thinking too. As a kid I always had private tutoring after school. I thought most can be done in the school as I don’t have to get him from A to B as it’s all done on-site. Our local junior school offers coding classes etc and as both of us work in technology it sounds pretty appealing.
Id like to think that I can offer both good career guidance - I used to work in a career advisory centre when I was at university. It was a part time job whilst studying.

I’m also instilling the importance of working to earn money to my 5 year old all the time.

I agree that it seems to vary widely and I’d like to thank everyone for their contribution to this thread.

One person mentioned that we might move closer to a good state school and this is 100% an option as we want to get a bigger house. We have the option of getting a huge house in an expensive part of the uk or spending that money on private school for the kids.

in summary, I need to look at the different schools then make a judgement call. What I find hard to reconcile is that both my husband and I never went to private school and are doing well. Both my husband and I did a lot of grafting and sacrifice to get to where we are today. Our kids won’t be the same as obviously we have more means than our parents did so won’t face the same “hardship”.

im pretty sure that we won’t pay for private unless the local school is awful then we won’t have a choice 😅

It could be to do with the upbringing. I’ve worked with graduates who are very confident. I’ve worked in a lot of top tier companies and I noticed the grads are so confident. One day I asked one what their dad does for work and they said he’s director of one of the largest drinks company globally. She was taught sales well before she went to uni as her parents started to teach her work skills very early. I feel that they have a head start. Personally mum couldn’t care less what I did and it took me ages to build confidence.

bottom line: CARE about your child's education (or act like it)

It's really courses for horses. I have taught in both. All teachers I have met are internally driven to succeed so strive to teach well. Many have taught in both systems. They value teaching and pupils. That's just how they are built. They are eager for pupils to learn so are committed no matter where they teach.

Pupils who are keen and have parental expectation and approval for academics make good progress.

Confidence: many posters on MN mention this. My experience is that teachers (and many but definitely not all parents) make more time to listen and respond kindly in private schools. This gives young people confidence to air all their thoughts. No matter what rubbish a pupil spouts at private school, teachers will respond positively: 'Interesting idea, Harry, but I'm not sure you've quite grasped the concept. Water really is more dense than air. This is why rain falls through the sky.'

Pupils' parents who support them outside of academics make good progress in those endeavours but due to sport/extra curriculars are also better organised to balance their time and thus make good progress academically.

Pupil motivation is a key factor. Pupils work harder and thus achieve more in subjects that interest them, no matter how brilliant the teacher(s). But parent approval weighs more heavily than parents might think so if, as a parent, something is important to you, be sure to show it, e.g. general conversation, (I was reading/thinking about X, let's talk about shading in drawing/painting; let's talk about how liquids become gases; here's an article/link that I enjoyed ... ), museum trips, match tickets, weekends away ...

Parents are eager to find 'good' schools but that idea: looking for a good school and expecting pupils to succeed; is the largest part of the pupils' success. Schools are important but not every teacher is a genius-magician. Parents' opinions carry huge weight.

bottom line: CARE about your child's education (or act like it)

Most of the posts on this thread are skewed towards private education.

For primary school it was a no brainer for DD. She went to the local Ofsted outstanding and outstanding in every way primary school.

We thought long and hard about whether to send DD to private school for secondary, but decided that the sacrifices we would have to make weren't worth it, and we would pay for tutors as and when required and support her through university.

With hindsight it was the best decision. DD had health issues that required frequent hospital appointments, and picking her up from the local comprehensive school 5 miles away instead of a 40 mile round trip from the private school made this much easier.

DD only needed a tutor for GCSE maths, which resulted in an A*.
She also achieved mostly A and A* at GCSE and all As at A level. I doubt that she would have done any better in private education. She is not sporty at all so wouldn't have been at all interested in all the extra curricular sports in private education.

Private education might have given her more confidence, but who knows.

You need to factor in the time it will take to provide state + tutoring + enrichment. Private schools do sport + music + art + drama more than once a week (at DDs school sport is every day, drama 3 times a week, art twice a week, singing 4 times a week) all within the 8.30am-5pm school day.
This means that if you do state but want to add enrichment to match private then you will need to offer these things every day AFTER you finish work. Plus the ultimate cost of all enrichment activities + they could very well end up being close to the cost of private fees. DDs secondary private fees are 17K per year.
We honestly wouldn't have the time or energy to facilitate all the extra curricular stuff that she gets as standard in her current school day.

This depends on your children (different people need and thrive in variable environments and have different strengths and weaknesses), your location, your local school options state and independent, your own values around education and I’m sure for some other specifics like religion and if schools offer some specialist subject/activity relevant to the individual. There is no simple answer.

@twistyizzy totally agree. In most of the families I know who do the full 'state plus' thing, the mums don't work or wirk very part time. (In fact one recently went back to work and left again, largely because it was so unworkable with her kids' activities.) We live quite rurally, and trying arrange lots of extra curricular activities is quite doable but takes a lot of time and a lot of driving. Financially, if I added up the cost of extra clubs plus the loss of my salary, it probably works out less to use a private school (and also allows me to do a job I love without lots of stress). For others, the calculation might well be different (don't want to work anyway, have more clubs locally, have public transport).

@tobyj yes many people who spout the state + enrichment model are unaware of exactly how many additional/enrichment activities private schools do as standard. Music isn't just 1 instrument, it can be 2+ instruments plus orchestra practice + singing etc. Sport isn't just 1 or 2 sports, it is 3+ sports per term and they change every term. I just don't see how parents who work full time could offer that breadth + depth of activities plus the tutoring.

I think @twistyizzy is hitting the nail in the head.
If you have an academically reasonably able child with mainstream interests (football, rugby, …) and one parent doesn’t work at all/works very parttime, you can go down the state + enrichment route for similar results.
It is not free though - you are paying with one parents independence, career and pension.
With a fulltime job adding dance, sport (our school does PE 3-4 days, with plenty of options to choose from), music, drama, instrument tuition, debate skills, extra art and SENDs tuition, on top of the school day - its not going to work.
There is a lot more to school (and life) than SATs scores, and I’m happy to pay for my children to have access to that. I wish every child did. Reading, writing , maths are the bare minimum.
State schools are unfortunately exam mills, just like some private schools (which i would also avoid).

Indeed. I know that at the end of a school day/week they've had plenty of sport to keep them fit and healthy, they've pursued their interests in music/drama etc with lessons/performance etc, they've been taught by a full complement of well-qualified subject specialists so I don't need to think about tutoring, they've had opportunities for other cultural enrichment type stuff, they've (when the time comes) had good support and advice with university/careers, and they've also been very well fed. That means that I don't feel any need to provide anything particular out of school (eg one does an extra sport club because he loves it, but if the other doesnt do much in the way of additional exercise, he's still got a good baseline fitness). I would find it impossible to provide anything like the same kinds of activities while still doing my job (and also supporting elderly relatives, which is an increasing time-commitment). I realise I'm very lucky to be in that position

The real scandal is that the state sector has been so deprived that it can’t provide a well rounded education…..Good for the ones who can supply the extras, but many can’t. and that is awful

If you have good local state or grammar schools I wouldn’t bother. Keep your money for extra tuition, extra curricular activities and having fun as a family. Everyone I’ve met who went to private school is arrogant and entitled.

Everyone I’ve met who went to private school is arrogant and entitled.

Bingo!

I agree

Based on your experience of exactly how many privately educated people?
But well done for trotting out that tired, old cliche!